Second Dinner has released their latest roadmap, and it's quite exciting. Let's dive into all the news!
Coming Soon!
Several exciting things are coming soon. This section includes things that are almost ready to launch and you can expect them sometime in the next few patches.
The most demanded feature in Snap is finally coming!
"What are Selectable Card Effects and Borders?
One of the most requested features in the game since beta has been the ability to pick your border and set it up with the best Infinity Split combo you have unlocked on your favorite variant. Guess what? It's coming soon! Gone are the days where you had to leave a card at a specific border or regret upgrading a card past a border you liked more. Now with Custom Card, you will be able to keep upgrading a variant as much as you want to chase even cooler combos while setting your Custom Card to your current favorite border and Infinity Split combo.
We are also preparing for a second phase of Custom Card you may see in the In Development section called Collectible Borders. Collectible Borders will be a brand new cosmetic type with new, never-before-seen Card Borders that you can acquire and apply to a character to unlock that border for that character’s Custom Card. If you think the current borders are great, wait until you see what is cooking!"
We will now be able to select our preferred card effects and borders. However, the way it is phrased and capitalized in the announcement, "Now with Custom Card," raises some concerns. It sounds like it might not be as straightforward as just choosing an effect and border from the card options. Instead, it suggests that Custom Card may be a new system that requires unlocking or purchasing.
Character Mastery
The Character Mastery system is the most exciting news for the game. It not only unlocks reactions but also offers gameplay challenges that you can perform with your favorite characters. This system is an excellent way to encourage players to purchase new variants. As most players have at least one cool variant for every card they play, Second Dinner needs to come up with creative ways to keep players engaged with the game's collection aspect and cosmetics in general.
"Has your love of friendly sharks caused you to collect every Jeff variant? And how perfect does that Ink split with black Krackle flare look on your Chibi Jeff? Well, now is the time to show off your mastery of playing and collecting each character in Marvel Snap! After Character Mastery launches, every cosmetic you collect for a character will contribute towards unlocking brand new Splits and exclusive rewards. If you thought Gold, Ink, and Krackle were fun, we have even more fun on the way! Earned your 4th Iron Man variant? Gain Iron Man Mastery. Earned your 3rd Gamora avatar? Gain Gamora Mastery. Split Venom for the 157th time, gain Mastery. As your Mastery for a character goes up, you unlock new and cooler Splits and eventually a brand new cosmetic type, Reactions. Exclusively available as a Mastery reward for each character, reactions are the fun emoji you can show off on cards and locations. What if your reaction was Goose or Wolverine? Your opponent will immediately know your dedication and love for that character when you show it off.
In its current Design, every few levels of Character Mastery you gain unlocks a Mastery Milestone. Each character has unique Mastery Milestone challenges for you to complete! Imagine reaching Deadpool Mastery 10 and unlocking a challenge to have Deadpool be over 100 power in a match. Completing a Mastery Milestone will earn new rewards for that character potentially including new Split unlocks, a new Collectible Border, or currencies to help you continue to increase your Collection Level. This is the current design, and it may change by the time we launch it, but we can’t wait to share it with you!"
Game events can be a delightful surprise for players. Not all players will actively search for community-run tournaments, and the in-game events could potentially fill that void for many players. Furthermore, these events could serve as an excellent method to keep players engaged after they achieve their season goals.
Album Improvements
It seems that there are plans to enhance the engagement level of albums.
"Thank you to everyone who provided feedback on our new Album feature in December. We’re actively making improvements that include more albums, easier to complete albums, albums with various sizes, and more ways to collect emotes! Imagine a Dan Hipp “Parent Album” that combines all of the Dan Hipp albums and rewards you for progress on each of the many Dan Hipp albums. Keep the feedback coming and stay tuned as we continuously improve this feature."
In Development
The "In Development" section features clans and other social features that are being actively worked on but are further from completion.
Clans 1.0
'We've heard your requests for a more social experience in Snap, and we're excited to announce we've been actively prototyping the first version of clans. This new feature will enable you to join or create clans, working together to complete missions and earn collective points. The more points your clan accumulates, the greater the rewards for all members. The Clans feature will be rolled out in phases, allowing us to gather feedback and refine the system along the way... Stay tuned for more updates as we get closer to releasing the first version of Clans.'
Booster Vats
'Do you dream of picking a character to get boosters after a match? Booster Vats are a new feature geared towards targeted booster acquisition for characters of your choosing! Booster Vats will come in sizes from small to Hulk-sized which award more and more boosters as the Booster Vat gets larger. Pick the Booster Vat size you want to use, pick the character you want to target, complete an objective to crack open the Booster Vat, and then collect your Boosters!'
When clans are finally introduced in the game, I am excited to see what fun features will be added for the Snap.Fan community! My main hope for clans is that they are enjoyable and do not feel like an added burden, as they do in some other games. Clans are most successful when they provide a fun way for people to interact and play together. Some potential additions such as booster vats, targeted boosters, more borders, and an in-game graveyard would be great.
In concept
This section is for ideas the team has kicked around or done some planning with but are largely undeveloped and conceptual. These are ideas the team would like to do eventually, but they'll be much further off.
"This is where we’d love your feedback the most! Concepts listed in this section may be elevated in priority, rescoped, or scrapped entirely… or we might hear something completely new from the community!
Here are some of the future concepts we’re thinking about for MARVEL SNAP:
New Game Mode
New Game Boards
Clan Competitions
Ultimate Variant Evolution
New Card Mechanics"
Clan Competitions
"We don't quite know yet. As we described in the Clans 1.0 section, we're going to release the Clans feature in phases and learn a ton along the way. Depending on what we learn, that will inform what we might want to explore (or not explore) in the future. Some type of feature that allows entire clans to battle it out against each other sounds really fun to us in theory, but it'll remain as just a design document until we learn more about Clans."
New Game Mode
"We have a lot of different ideas for our next new game mode and are working through the concepts. The next step will be that we’ll choose a few to go through a prototyping, testing, and evaluation plan to help us figure out what’ll be the most fun."
I am a bit disappointed to hear that a new game mode is still in the distant future. It will take a considerable amount of time to develop, and I was hoping it would arrive sooner. I would love to see a draft mode added. Please do not hesitate to contact the team to share your preferences for new game modes. Additionally, I am hoping that the Ultimate Variants will receive some improvements soon. Lastly, I think Clan competitions and new game boards are excellent concepts that should be considered.
The overall roadmap looks great and appears to be particularly focused on finding ways to keep the player base engaged in the long run. Please let us know in the comments which aspects of the roadmap you find the most exciting!